Bobby Fiorentino, a 28-year-old Villanova grad who deals in Philadelphia real estate, is a fairly soft-spoken guy in real life, but give him a video camera and a lipstick pink Ford Fiesta and he turns into the wild man of social networking. Here's one of his recent YouTube videos:

 

 

Fiorentino ("bobbysofamous" on Twitter and Facebook)  is one of 100 Fiesta “agents” taking part in a six-month trial designed to put Ford’s new subcompact on the map before its U.S. debut. Some 4,000 applied, in part because the deal included a Euro-spec car for six months, as well as free gas and insurance. The only requirement was to be cute (take a look at the agents on the “Fiesta Movement” site if you don’t believe me) and to create interesting Twitter tweets, Flickr photos, Facebook postings and YouTube videos.

 

It seems to be working. The agents have scored a million visits to YouTube, 180,000 Flickr views, and posted 1,500 tweets. Fiorentino, whose eye-catching friend Melissa has a starring role, seems to get into the MTV-ness of it all. In his most recent video, he’s on a scavenger hunt in his native Philly, but road trips (they’re paying for gas, remember?) have taken him to Buffalo, New York City, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

 

“I would definitely buy a Fiesta,” Fiorentino said. “It’s a really cool, sleek-looking car, with a lot of high-tech features, including voice activation and iPod ports as part of the Sync system. It’s really very quick, and gets almost 40 mpg.” Being a Euro car, he says, the thermometer is in Celsius and the navigation system has a British accent (it refers to the hood as “the bonnet.”)

 

 

Other agents include Seattle's Kristina Horner, "Who has never been able to sit still," and is a band that plays Harry Potter songs; and Michael Aranda of Chino Hills, California, who "will tweet for food" and "aspires to become way better than everyone else at everything ever."

 

When it comes to the U.S., in the first quarter of next year, the 1.6-liter Fiesta will offer a four-inch display, available Sync sound (plays iPods and hard drives through the head end), sport tuning, keyless entry and push-button control. Electronic stability control will be standard.

 

“Fiesta,” by the way, is an old Ford nameplate, but you’d have to be, I don’t know, ancient, to even remember the earlier version.

 

(MNN homepage photo: RypeArts/iStockphoto)